The biggest conferences -- the Atlantic Coast, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and Southeastern -- do not want to be bothered with the smaller fish in the NCAA Division I pond.

Finally, the smaller fish have sighed in resignation and said, OK, have at it.

Last week at the NCAA convention, Division I administrators, conference commissioners and other officials took a straw vote to gauge support for giving the Big Five more autonomy.

Almost 60 percent were in favor.

At a future NCAA meeting, this vote likely will become formal.

First on the agenda for the big guys will be stipends for scholarship athletes.

"I think this certainly has been bubbling for a long time," said Chris Mooney, men's basketball coach at the University of Richmond, a member of the Atlantic 10. "I don't want to speak for the conference commissioners or athleticdirectors, but I would think we would match that (stipends)."

Most conferences will do what is necessary to remain competitive in basketball. The quest for a spot in the NCAA tournament is an essential part of their existence.

The easy way to look at this push for autonomy is that it's all about stipends. But that's an ancillary point.

The bigger issue gets obscured by the philosophical, economic and emotional debate over stipends.

And the bigger issue is this is a major step in a seismic shift in Division I college athletics, a step that might be inevitable but is not in the right direction.

Division I football already is out of control. No team outside one of the five power conferences has a real chance to compete for a national championship.

That is not the case in basketball. At the moment, the NCAA tournament is seen as untouchable.

"What keeps it great is the Cinderella stories, the five-12 pairings often won by the 12," Mooney said.

But if the major conferences get more autonomy, how long before their members lose patience with the basketball tournament selection process -- "Our No.9 team didn't get in, but they took a second team from the Colonial?" -- and establish a super championship in basketball, followed by such championships in all sports?

As 2024 approaches and the $11 billion NCAA tournament television contract nears expiration, rest assured there will be talk of the lucrative possibilities of a basketball tournament among the Big Five conferences to establish a true national champion.

The NCAA and its sweet little Cinderella stories? Let them eat cake!

"I've had some pretty healthy debates with folks who think this is going to completely change the competitive structure of college athletics," said Tom Yeager, commissioner of the Colonial Athletic Association. "I'm not as threatened by the whole 'gloom and doom, the sky is falling' scenario. There are so many unregulated areas -- housing, transportation (charter flights for games), weight rooms, locker rooms, how many jersey combinations you have, you name it -- that ... tip the level playing field on a pretty steep angle that have nothing to do with autonomy."

Yeager has devoted his professional life to college athletics. He knows his business.

But human nature is predictable. The more latitude received, the more sought.

For decades, there has been talk of super conferences that would set their own rules and hold their own championships. They would create leagues closer to professional than the current semi-professional level of college football, basketball and baseball.

If the Big Five are given the autonomy they seek, we will see the next step in that evolution.

The inescapable story in sports is how athletes — particularly NFL players — are treating the playing of “The Star Spangled Banner” before games. Ever since the 2016 NFL preseason, when Colin Kaeperknick, then a member of the San Francisco 49ers, did not stand for the national anthem as a protest against the treatment of people of color in the United States, the act of sitting or kneeling during the anthem has stirred debate among players and fans, and between professional leagues and politicians.

The inevitable trickle-down effect has been evidenced at virtually every level of competition. A Cahokia, Ill., youth football team of seven- and eight-year-olds knelt for the anthem at a game Sept. 17. A high school football team in Seattle, Wash., likewise took a knee for the anthem before a game Friday night.

No matter where administrators place themselves on the political spectrum, at least some are facing decisions regarding an appropriate response to such “social injustice” protests.

There may be little guidance to go by. The NCAA has no policy regarding national anthem protocol, and in fact doesn’t even require that the anthem be played. Most college football teams opt to remain in their locker rooms as marching bands play the anthem several minutes before kickoff.

In April, the National Federation of State High School Associations released an article by legal expert Lee Green, which concluded, “With regard to student-athlete national anthem protests, school and athletics administrators might be best served by using such demonstrations as a teachable moment to discuss the underlying issues and encourage lifelong political advocacy by students. And even those school officials who disagree with the protests might take note of the following quote. Commenting on his advocacy of freedom of speech and promoting the ‘marketplace of ideas” concept he first posited in the Supreme Court’s decision in Abrams v. United States (1919), Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once stated to a newspaper reporter that “every American believes in free speech unless it’s speech he doesn’t agree with.’ ”

One antidote to sky-is-falling reactions regarding the nexus of sports and politics is the fact that anthem protests predate Kaepernick by decades. Prior to his Hall of Fame NBA career as Kareen Abdul-Jabbar, Lew Alcindor refused to stand for the anthem during a UCLA career that saw him lead the Bruins to three national championships in the 1960s. In response, legendary UCLA John Wooden kept the entire team in the locker room as the anthem played — an approach witnessed this weekend in more than one NFL stadium. The anthem — and the games — played on.

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